Four Beginnings
by sophiesix
Summary: Flame has lost her memory: the past decade is a blank: Ayasha, Dorsey, Alex: gone. She has to begin again with all of them. But Dorsey won’t accept this, and will use whatever means necessary to get it back. Follows Degrees of Freedom
1. Chapter 1

**Four beginnings**

_Flame has lost her memory: the past decade is a blank: Ayasha, Dorsey, Alex: gone. She has to begin again with all of them. But Dorsey won't accept this, and will use whatever means necessary to get it back. Follows Degrees of Freedom_

* * *

**1.**

I had only gone in to Seeker Headquarters to print out a file on the Kimberley, one of the last Soul-free zones that was still 'hunted' for wild humans. I made a coffee while the printer hummed and hawed. But that short amount of time was enough for the others to spot me and suck me in.

"Hey, Hungry Flame!"

I saw Jackson waving me over, hunched over a desk with Montgomery. I approached them slowly, carefully, stirring my coffee.

"We could use your input on this one," Jackson continued, staring at a screen.

"You're joking, right? Last time I saw you guys you were framing me for attempted murder."

"Well, murder actually. But yeah, we could use your 2 cents."

I wouldn't be helping them, I'd be helping the victim, I told myself, letting my curiosity get the better of me.

"What is it," I said non-committally.

"Missing person. Recently de-implanted Soul."

"So a human then," I specified.

"Right. Kim Turner, four kids, ages 4-14, resident 6 years."

"The Soul you mean. We're looking for the Host, right?"

"So you're in?"

"Maybe. What's the story?"

"Soul decided she couldn't morally reside in the Host any longer and asked for removal. Seeker insertion to revive the Host, but once she woke up, she spent 3 days at home and went missing in action."

"Soul off-planet yet?"

"Long gone."

"No father on the scene?"

"Not resident. Original father dead, it was IVF for the last one. He knows the kids though. The younger ones are staying with him now."

"Have you talked to the kids?"

He navigated to the recording.

Seeker : do you know where your Mum is?

kid: [shrugs]

Seeker: …no idea at all?

kid: [glares at the wall]

The recording filmed a few more seconds silence, then ended.

"I'll take that as a no. Mind if I talk to them?"

"Be my guest."

"Can I take Beebe with me?" Beebe was usually Montgomery's partner, following the policy of mixing Souls and humans. But the policy didn't always work out in practice. Especially seeing as Jackson's partner, Follows Echoes, was on extended leave.

"Ooh, Gomez, look at that, Souls ganging up together, that's not on," Jackson smiled, watching me. Montgomery raised his eyebrows, but I cut him off before he could reply.

"It's not because he's a Soul, it's because…"

"Say it, say it."

I grimaced.

"We could use a Comforter's perspective," I muttered.

"Thank you, Merry," Jackson said as Montgomery handed over a ten dollar note.

"Never thought I'd hear her say it," Montgomery muttered.

"Let's start with the eldest," I went on, ignoring them.

"Sarah Turner, 14, Healing Centre," Montgomery read off the screen.

"Healing Centre?"

"Depression, Multiple attempts at terminal self harm."

"Is that what they're calling it these days…"

"She would be old enough to remember her human mother. More than the other kids."

"Gomez: we'll talk to her Comforters, see what we can get out of them," Jackson said, making for the carpark.

"Humans ganging up together, that's not on," Beebe said, shadowing him with an imperceptible smile.

"Why does he call you that?" I asked Montgomery as he helped me collect my Kimberley stack. He looked embarrassed but answered anyway.

"I made the mistake of telling him he could call me anything but Monty. He had a whole collection going there for a while: Mo, Go, Gummy, Gomez, Merry, Mer… he's ended up sticking to Gomez and Merry." He shrugged. "Could be worse."

***

Even in the children's section, a Healing Centre was a Healing Centre. Home to Bhask's implantation, Alex's implantations, Ayasha's forcible removal, my pregnancy… Even the memory of Falling Smoke walking these corridors was a sad memory, now that he was gone.

Seeker Beebe knocked on the open door and I realized we were at the eldest girl's room. He introduced us and waited for me to begin. But I found myself momentarily occupied with staring at the pale walls, remembering other days and nights in very similar rooms…

"Hi," Sarah said finally, prompting me, watching me with emerging interest.

"Hi," I replied, trying to focus, but still not quite able to rise to the occasion with those walls bearing down on me.

"Isn't this where you're supposed to ask me questions?"

"Ah… yeah. Sorry. I just ah, don't really like these places much."

"That makes two of us."

She watched me eying the walls, waiting for my move.

"You want to go outside?" she offered.

"God yes. They let you?"

"Only if I'm supervised. I reckon two big tough Seekers can handle me."

She led us out to a patch of lawn and spread out on her belly, catching at the grass between her fingers.

"This about Mum?" she asked.

"Yeah. You know she's missing?"

She nodded. "What do you want to know?"

"I'm trying to get a feel for what is was like for her, the whole situation. I'm not sure I really understand why the Soul left, I mean, you were her children too…?"

She nodded again frowning. "Yeah, she really loved the little ones."

"But you and her…?"

"We never really got along."

"Understandable. She took your mother."

She shrugged. "Wasn't her fault. She didn't choose where she got put. But it was just… too weird."

"Yeah," I whispered. I could relate to that. On many levels. Falling Smoke implanted in Alex was just wrong, no matter how nice Falling Smoke was. And me implanted in Alex was definitely too, too weird. "So she gave you your mother back."

"She thought it would make me better," she said a quiet, hard voice.

"And how did it go?"

"Not good."

I waited, but the flow seemed to have stemmed.

"She got her family back. Isn't that what she would have wanted?" Beebe asked.

"Think about it. She wakes up to find aliens ruling the planet, her husband dead, and she's got four children, one in hospital, one that doesn't remember her, and two she's never seen before in her life."

I could see Beebe thinking '_cheery little thing, isn't she?_', but I sat back with a sudden feeling of perfect understanding. I had been in the same position myself the year before, only it was Alex, Dorsey and Ayasha I didn't recognize…


	2. Chapter 2

**2.**

We had flown down to meet Dorsey and Bhask for a holiday in the tropics. Seeing as there were no communications going into the Soul-free zone, Alex had travelled in to tell them, while Yash and I enjoyed the rainforests, mountains and beaches til he came back. But all the time I was conscious of the other half of this place that we weren't seeing: the underwater half. The reefs stretched glorious and tantalising all along the coast line, but with Ayasha to look after I never felt like I had the opportunity to have a proper look. That's what I told myself anyway. The old fear that the water held from me could have been a part of it too. It was always that much harder to ignore when Alex wasn't with me. But when Alex got back and said Dorsey and Bhask would meet us in a week or two, I decided to take the plunge, and we signed up for a diving boat.

"How'd it go?" Alex asked, relaxing on the back deck with Ayasha in their snorkeling gear. I hauled myself up the ladder onto the boat, struggling with the sudden weight in the airy atmosphere.

"Incredible! Absolutely amazing. You have to give it a try," I replied, squinting at them in the bright sunlight, still floored by the colours and shapes in the almost silent world below.

"You didn't get scared?" Yashie asked.

"Nup. Did you?"

"Warm water is an entirely different beast," Alex said, shaking his head.

"It is, isn't it? And the light!" So different to the dark, murky rivers and lakes of home. "And to have an air supply just there, constantly, no matter where you are… you _have_ to give it a try!"

The dive attendants helped us peel off our gear and we climbed up to the roof to join the other divers for lunch.

***

The days passed leisurely, exploring the world beneath, or floating on top with Ayasha, watching Alex's shadowy form wave at us from the sea floor.

Then one day I surfaced under a shroud of clouds surrounding the normally all-powerful sun. There had been talk of an approaching storm, and the captain had been keeping a close eye on its logarithmic growth through the satellite data. That day he decided to call it quits, cut short our stay on the outer reefs and head for the safety of the harbour.

We made good time, the storm only a suggestion in the darkness at the horizon and the unsettled chop. But then, the engines died and reversed, and we were turning into the waves.

"This is the first mate speaking," a voice came over the intercom, "We have received a may-day signal and as the closest vessel we are obliged to attempt to respond."

Alex and I looked at each other, wary. A may-day signal? Not back in the storm?

"This will delay our entry into the harbor and you may experience some heavy seas."

_Some heavy seas_? It was cyclone strength on the satellite image.

"The outer decks will be henceforth closed to passengers. Sorry for any inconvenience."

We_ were _headed back into the storm. The chop grew around us as the breeze grew insistent and the light began to disappear, the sea transmuting from a gem-like aquamarine to a hard slatey-grey.

"Will the storm be bad?" Yash asked in a small voice, staring out the port hole as the world slished and slopped past, increasingly steeply, and a steady rain began . Alex didn't reply, which was unusual for him.

"We're going to be fine, honey," I replied.

"What if the boat sinks?"

"We'll grab some of those air tanks and hide out on the sea floor. You remember how peaceful it is down there?"

"But the waves…"

"The waves are only at the surface. Remember how we dived under them at the beach? We'll go deep under them, find a little cave so we don't bob to the surface while we sleep, and we'll bundle together like sea otters and snooze till the storms gone away."

She smiled at the mention of sea otters. They were a favourite.

"I like sea otters," she whispered, curling up next to Alex on the bunk on her back, holding a book to her chest and blowing on her hands one at a time. In other words, being a sea otter. Obviously.

"You are a perfect sea otter," I murmured, rubbing her belly. The rolling motion of the boat rocked her to sleep, and I could feel it making me drowsy too. I strapped the blanket down over her and got up to go to the bridge.

"Where are you going?" Alex said, and it sounded like an effort for him to speak.

"The bridge. Get some air. I want to see how far away we are from the may-day. You coming?"

He heaved himself out of the bunk's somnolent grip and followed me, in the strange side to side dance up the corridor that the ship's motion compelled.

Despite the cloud, rain, and spray encasing us, the bridge had large windows on three sides and felt open compared to our quarters below. The motion of the hull was magnified up here; the cabin swinging twice as far as the pivoting hull at the centre of its arc. It was impossible to stand without holding onto to something, lest you join the pitch and toss and bounce off the navigation tables from window to window and back again. And I got the idea the exacting crew wouldn't have approved of that. The endless energy of the storm was breathtaking to watch, the boat ceaselessly plowing up and down through the waves, the sea birds battling the wind on either side.

"There's life below decks after all!," the captain drawled at us, tirelessly manning the helm, "I was beginning to think I was sailing a ghost ship."

"It's too stuffy down there. It's amazing up here!" I said, exchanging startled glances with a shearwater hovering in mid air beside me, being pelted with rain on the other side of the glass. In a different world.

"There's not everyone appreciates it," the captain replied.

"They don't know what they're missing," I murmured, "Are we far from the may-day?"

" 'Nother hour or two, wind dependant," he said, then cast a significant look at Alex, "What I mean to say is, I think he'd be better below decks; what d'you think?"

I glanced at Alex too. He was a strange pale green colour beneath a slick of cold sweat, and struggling valiantly to keep standing beneath the weight of his sickness and the toss and pull of the waves. "Oh. Thanks."

"Feel free to come back and give us a hand, once he's attended to."

I bundled Alex back down the stairs and into our cabin, strapping him in next to Yash.

"I want to help," he croaked. I shoved tablets into his mouth while it wasn't clamped shut against the nausea.

"Drink," I replied, holding some water to him, "You are not going to be any help like this. Get better first, then come up." I pulled the rubbish bin over to him and wedged it next to the bunk, putting his hand on its rim.

"Don't spew on Yashie, ok?"

He couldn't even reply, and I rejoined the crew once more.

***

All binoculars were aimed at the sea ahead and to the sides, struggling to pierce the shifting rain, waves and spray to find the yacht.

"Vessel sighted, eleven o'clock!" the mate said tersely. A pale blip heaving on the surface of the boiling sea gradually came into view, and the captain reversed the engines to slow us down. As we neared, we could make out the three yachtsmen, wet blobs of bright orange tucked in amongst the snapped masts and tangled rigging. The captain edged the boat as close as he dared in the violent seas, and the crew tossed them life buoys on ropes, spinning them into the storms grip. The wind tossed them away like leaves until the captain could angle the boat just right. Then the yachtsmen each slipped inside one and were towed back to the safety of our boat. I kept out of the way of the practiced, well oiled rescue team, and kept to the galley with the cook, brewing fresh coffee and assembling towels and blankets. The crew hauled the yachtsmen aboard and half carried them down to us. We pressed coffee onto them as the crew stripped off their soaked clothing and started warming them up. Drenched, pale, shivering, mentally and physically exhausted from fighting the wind and the ocean for hours, the yachtsmen nevertheless conjured up the energy to smile at us in gratitude. The little galley became cramped with rescuers and the medic ordered us all out, bar the cook who stared him down, one eyebrow raised.

As soon as they were safely on board we had turned and headed back for the mainland, but now instead of being able to run ahead of the storm, we were sinking more and more firmly into its grip as it shrieked and intensified overhead, overtaking us in its spinning race to the coast. I shivered to think of the fate of those men if we hadn't plucked them from the storm's grasp.

"Get back to quarters, girlie," the mate said, squeezing my shoulder and speaking loud above the smash of the waves on the hull and the scream of the wind. "Strap yourself in, it's going to be a long night!"

It was a battle to make it back to our little room, the corridor was a steep climb one second, and a downwards slope the next. The trick was to hold on until it was going your way, move while you could, then hold on again til the next opportunity. I finally burst into the cabin and was hit by a wave of stink: Alex had not been well.

"Did we get them?" he gasped, holding onto the blanket straps so hard I felt they might become a part of his hand.

"Yup, they're fine. We're heading in," I replied, screwing my face against the stench, stripping every contaminated item from the room and sealing it into the laundry bag. Yash got dumped in the shower despite her tearful complaints, but Alex wasn't moving. I had to resort to a sponge bath for him.

"Stop wriggling!" I ordered as he flipped slowly back and forth trying to settle his wretchedness, "It's not every day you get a sponge bath on a tropical cruise. Enjoy it while you can." But he was not appreciating it, sounding awfully close to swearing at me in his groans.

At last they were all clean and dry and I could strap them back into to a fresh bunk and start on the floor, awash with sponge bath and unmentionables.

"Aren't you ever going to stop?" Alex whispered, watching me work over the top of a freshly lined bin.

"Go to sleep," I murmured, and eventually he did.

The storm grew worse as the night drew on, and little fingers of fear started to wriggle into my brain now that I had nothing to concentrate on. I made the epic journey to the bridge again, if only to distract myself from the thought of being surrounded by so much enraged water.

"What are you doing up here? Get away with ye; bridge is closed," the captain snarled at me, fighting to keep the engines in the water and the ship lined up to the waves.

"Go on!" he yelled, noticing I was still there, huddling in a corner and trying to look small. "Mate!"

"Please don't make me go," I whispered as the mate grabbed my arm, "I won't get in the way." He saw the fear in my eyes and nodded, leaving me in peace. The captain was too preoccupied with the ship to bother to check if his orders had been obeyed.

"Get them back on the radio!" he ordered, and the RO pressed his head phones closer, speaking urgently into the receiver.

"They are still denying they are the closest ship, sir!"

The captain swore flavoursomely.

"They're the closest thing that's going to stay afloat in these seas!"

"They say it's too dangerous to take us onboard, sir."

"Ask them how they'd like to pluck us one by one out of a sea breaking on a reef, ask them that!" he shouted back, "Too dangerous my arse."

There was a longer delay this time in the relaying of the messages, giving me ample time to imagine the force of the waves grinding me into the reef as I drowned.

"We have permission to board, sir!"

"Thank Christ for that," the captain muttered, "Prepare to abandon ship!"

***

The ship we were moving onto was a massive cargo ship, and even she was getting knocked around by the storm. The crew herded us like sheep into position and the transfer went as smoothly as it could in the middle of a tropical cyclone. The crew had to almost carry Alex up to our new quarters, his legs rubber beneath him, and he sank gratefully into the bunk, never having been quite so happy to be horizontal.

"Don't you dare try and bloody dry me or anything," he breathed, as we were all soaked from the bucketing rain, "I _absolutely_ refuse to move." The medic gave him something to help him sleep and Yash snuggled wetly into his side. I dried what I could without eliciting complaint and stayed with them til they were both deeply asleep. Then the whines and moans of the storm still playing on my mind, I set out to have a look around. Our crew were no company, snatching sleep while they could, and the ship's own crew were seriously unfriendly. An all-human crew; not unusual in this day and age, but to be openly antagonistc to Souls… Alex would tell me I was taking it personally. They were probably just tired and didn't appreciate the extra work. I kept out of their way, tunneling below decks to explore the holds. The containers on the deck were a fraction of those stored below, and below them again were the engine rooms. I kept well clear of those, knowing the engineers would have enough to do without bothering with me, but the cargo holds were deserted and still, the rumblings of the engines cutting out everything else so only the most distant sounds of the storm got through the layers and layers of metal. You could almost forget how wild it was outside, especially compared to the tossings of our little dive boat.

I walked along the corridors of cargo, between the creaking of the stays and the scrape of metal on metal, my torch playing along the containers and pallets, picking out the stamp where each was marked with their contents. But I then I got to an area where the stamps were disfigured or missing, and my interest was sparked. An all-human crew, mislabeled cargo, and an aversion to visitors? Something wasn't right.

I searched out a crowbar to lever open the latches holding the doors of the containers closed. The air was dank and hot with the fug from the engine rooms, and I began to sweat as I struck the container latch again and again, each time shifting it a little more towards open with a deafening clank and the scream of the metal hinges twisting on each other.

But long before I could get a glimpse of what was inside, the crowbar was jerked out of my hands. I turned to see a glowering crew member blocking my exit. And not our crew, needless to say.

"Getting a bit curious, were we?" he said in an icy voice. I backed up to the metal walls that trembled with the shudder of the engines. "Curiosity killed the cat."

"Good thing I'm not a cat, then?" I tried, but he swung the bar anyway, and I knew nothing more.

***

Alex told me later that he didn't wake up and notice I was gone until they arrived in Cairns harbour, the docks covered in the smashed wreckage of other boats, the streets flooded waist deep and deserted. The captain had raised the emergency response teams on the radio, and they sent a tinny our way. Alex refused to get on til he had found me, and equally refused to let Yash out of his sight, so they left without them. He began to search the ship, level by level. Finally deep in its iron bowels he had found me, unconscious, stuck to the metal floor by the dried blood from my head.

He had carried me out, laid me next to Yash on a wooden pallet, and waded through the flooded streets, pushing the pallet in front of him, watching every swirl of brown water for crocodiles. But of course, I remembered nothing of that.


	3. Chapter 3

**3.**

A growing headache drew me out of unconsciousness. A human was watching me, and came over as I opened my eyes, touching my cheek and leaning towards me. _Woah_, I thought as I shifted away from him, the gurney creaking beneath me: clearly this guy had no idea of personal space.

"Uh…" I removed his hand from my face and dropped it, avoiding his intense, inquiring eyes, "Hello?" Why he wasn't restrained? He was surely mentally disturbed… Why was I in a mental hospital?

"Hi," he said, as if were natural to talk to strangers in a hospital, and gaze at them like they were meat.

"How are you feeling?" he asked. I felt a flicker of annoyance at these words, but had no idea why.

"Fine," I replied carefully, wondering how you called the Healers around here. I looked around surreptitiously for a buzzer, anything…

His eyes narrowed. "Fine, hey?"

The headache was growing too large to ignore. I pressed my fingertips gently to my forehead, resting my arm on the pillow behind me casually, as if there was nothing wrong. Just relaxing.

"Yes, fine."

"I'm going to get a nurse."

_What a great idea. Go away. Hopefully someone will realize you're loose and lock you up again_.

"Good morning Hungry Flame, how are you feeling?" the Healer said, checking my monitors and shining her light painfully in my eyes. The man sat on the bed opposite and watched. Did he have nothing better to do?

"Ok, I guess."

"Do you know where you are?"

"Healing Centre?"

"Cairns Base Hospital. You suffered a head injury and you've been unconscious for a while. Do you feel dizzy, nauseous…?"

"Ugh… a bit. That explains the killer headache."

She altered my medications, and the headache began to ease.

"I'm going to call Dorsey," the man said, walking to the end of the room. _Great_, I thought, _you do that_. _Loonie_.

"Isn't that a bit dangerous?" I whispered to her, indicating the human standing at the window sill, talking softly into a mobile. She looked at him, then back at me, puzzled. "Don't you think he should be in his own room, maybe restrained or something?"

"He's not a patient."

Then what was he doing here? A human just running around a hospital? What sort of place was this?

I heard voices coming out of a lift. Bhask! Something familiar at last.

"Mum!" he smiled, coming into the room. I opened my mouth to greet him and it sagged in shock.

"You're huge!" I finally managed to say, "How long have I been asleep?"

"About 3 days."

"But…" This made no sense. My little weedy child: he was tall. His funny thin shoulders had the visible curves of muscles. Bhask was seriously different. _Old_. "I don't understand."

"What don't you understand?" the Healer asked, "It's ok: its normal to be a bit confused after a head injury like that."

"My son has shot up 2 feet and, and… he's huge!"

"_Mum_," he complained, grinning, rubbing his biceps self-consciously "You haven't seen me in a month or so I guess…"

"No, this is not the work of a month." He looked almost… adult. I had a powerful urge to go home, go back to our little house in the suburbs, and hole up.

"How big did you think I was?"

I indicated somewhere in his mid chest. He shook his head slowly, becoming uneasy.

"What's the last thing you remember, Hungry Flame?" the Healer said, looking at me cautiously.

"Last thing? I don't know…"

"Flame, who is the current leader of parliament?" the man asked. He was beginning to seriously annoy me, and no one else batted an eyelid at him. Was I the only one who realized he was human?

"Parliament?" I repeated, confused.

They all exchanged worried looks.

"What year of school am I in?" Bhask asked.

"They're making you repeat final year! It's so unfair. You could do training school no problem."

"Uh, that was a while ago."

"A while? How long is while?"

"A decade."

_A decade_?

"Flame-" the man said, but my irritation boiled over.

"My name's Hungry Flame, alright? Would two extra syllables really kill you? Hungry Flame! Not Flame!"

I turned back to Bhask, steaming, "Who _is_ that guy?"

He stared at me, appalled.

"Bhask?"

"That's Alex. You know Alex."

I glanced back at him.

"No… I don't." I felt for my pendant, the familiar touch of the cool smooth metal.

"She didn't know me a decade ago, Bhaskar. She doesn't remember."

"My pendant!" I stared at Bhask horrified, "I've lost it!" but the man was putting it in my hand. What was he doing with it? He was starting to scare me now.

"Alex, don't-" Bhask started, but was silenced with a look from the man, as I tied it back round my neck, letting its faithful presence calm me. Then they both started at the sound of voices bubbling from the corridor. A woman and child, neither of whom I recognised. Maybe a playmate of Bhask's? Then I remembered he didn't seem the age for playmates anymore.

"Stall them," Bhask said anxiously, as Alex nodded and headed out the door, "Yash can not see her like this."

I was feeling seriously confused. Was this still the head wound?

"Mum, you remember Dorsey and Yash?"

I watched him silently. Was this some kind of a joke?

"Ayasha, Mum. You have to remember Ayasha?"

"Who? I said, shaking my head gently.

"Oh my god," Bhask breathed.

"Hungry Flame, it appears you have suffered some memory loss," the Healer said quietly.

I looked from one to the other. "This isn't a joke?"

They looked back at me unblinking. _Maybe... a bad dream_? I thought, but the headache had been very real. _A Hallucination_? I though desperately, but gradually understood this was somehow reality.

"Like how much memory loss… not, not really a decade?"

"So I take it you don't remember me then," a woman said, pushing past Bhask and sitting next to me on my bed. She held out her hand, "Dorsey. I'm your sister."

I shook it, bewildered "My...?"

"Dorsey, don't confuse her-" Bhask said, but Dorsey carried on over the top of him.

"Sister. Same Mum and Dad."

"Uh... nice to meet you… I'm Hungry Flame."

"I know. We've met before. So you don't remember Alex?"

"That freaky guy that was in here earlier?"

She laughed delightedly and threw her arm around me.

"Yeah him. Ok, here's the thing. Alex is in the corridor waiting with Ayasha."

I glanced at Bhask in frustration. Why did everyone think I should know these people?

"Ayasha is your daughter."

Oh.

_Oh_.

"Now, she's standing out there wandering why she can't see her Mummy, and she's about to get really upset. You wouldn't want that, would you?"

I shook my head, feeling like I was from another planet. I had a daughter?

"Ok, so I'm going to bring her in, and you're going to treat her like a daughter, right? I don't want to see any tears."

"Ok," I said faintly. Dorsey leapt up and signaled out the doorway, and a young girl came running in.

"Mummy!"

She jumped on the bed and put her arms round my neck.

"Whoa, Yash, careful with Mum," Alex said, trying to pull her back, but she refused to be moved, clinging to me limpet tight.

"Hi, uh, Yash," I said, glancing at Bhask, trying not to sound too stilted and uncertain.

"We saw a _crocodile_! And I thought you'd never wake up, but Daddy said-" and here I lost her. _Daddy_? I I suddenly felt the ring on my finger. It felt like it had been there a while. Like it was normal. But in my head, there was nothing normal about it. I came back to the present as she tugged on my pendant, frowning.

"Why are you wearing Daddy's necklace?" she asked.

"It's not-" I started, but Alex cut me off.

"It used to be Mummy's. Daddy's given it back to her for a bit."

_Oh dear_, I thought, looking from one to the other; _he_ was her Daddy. The freaky guy. The _human_.

"I think Flame's had just about enough visitors for the moment," Dorsey said, noticing my rabbit in the headlights look, "she probably needs a rest, right?"

"Nmmh," I murmured, holding the pendant tight. The child released me reluctantly and the man drew her away. I watched her go, suddenly missing her and at the same time not understanding how I could. She was a stranger to me. Only, somehow… deep in my heart of hearts, something pulled painfully to be separated from her.

A nurse brought in a lunch tray and Dorsey watched me as I stared at the wall, then opened it up and started cut up the meat into bite sized portions.

"You need a plan.'

"A plan would be good," I said faintly.

"Right. First you're going to eat lunch," she said, spearing some meat and holding it to me. I ate obediently, and refocused on her face, "Then Bhask is going to come back here and fill you in on a few things. Like the last decade."

"Why do they let you just roam around?" I asked. She stiffened in the middle of trying the meat for herself.

"What do you mean?"

"You're human. Aren't you afraid they'll implant you?"

"Ok. No. Long story. I'll leave it for Bhask. You're jumping ahead. Then, the Healers'll probably make you stay here a while, jump through some hoops, but when they let you out, we've got this nice dump up in the rainforest, you can just sit down, take your time, and start to remember stuff." She made it sound so easy. I found that I liked her immensely.

"I don't want to stay here," I said, looking at each of the pale walls in turn. Did they look familiar?

"No, well, we'll get you out as soon as they let us, don't you worry about that. No one's keen on Healing Centres in this family."

_Family_… I had family…

"So then we go to this… hut?"

"It's not so bad. A cottage really, just a bit falling apart with the damp and age. But it's above the flood line; that's prime real estate right now."

"So… who would be there, again?"

"You, me, Bhask, Ayasha and Alex. The usual suspects."

"Oh," I said, thinking unhappily of being in the same small house as this Alex, "him."

Dorsey paused from feeding me, looking at me searchingly.

"What's with the freaky guy thing? I get that you don't remember him, but you're treating him like he insulted your grandmother."

"He looks at me funny," I shrugged, uncomfortable, taking the fork from her and stuffing my mouth to avoid having to answer further. She waited til I was done.

"He looks at you funny? What are you, 6 years old?"

I cringed, wishing she'd just drop it, but getting the idea that this was just not in her repertoire.

"He looks at me… like he wants to have sex with me," I whispered.

"It has been known to happen… And, that's a bad thing?"

"I don't even know him!" I hissed, "It's disturbing!"

"Oh boy," she muttered, "Why do I get the feeling this is going to take a while? Let me go get Bhask."

_

"Ok, what do you want to know?" Bhask asked, settling in beside me.

"Why humans are just wandering round for one. And why are we in Cairns?"

"Hum. Ok, two kinda long stories. You know, you could just get yourself implanted in Alex for a bit, then you'd have the decade straight back."

"I don't want his memories," I could imagine what his memories would be like, and felt no desire whatsoever to be party to them. "I want my memories. Keep to the facts, please. Let's see if they trigger anything."

"Right," he said doubtfully. He filled me in on the moratorium, the treaty, and I had so many technical questions we never got round to anything else.

"You talk like I'm a part of History, that I did this stuff." It still seemed to me like events that had happened somewhere else, to someone else.

"You did. Well, you and Alex."

"Actually, you were just the chauffeur most of the time," Dorsey said, coming in with Ayasha swinging off her arm like a monkey. "All caught up?"

"No," Bhask laughed.

"But enough for now," I said quickly, mind still whirling over the changes. Ayasha climbed over Bhask and lay on my legs. The warm weight of her body seemed familiar, and brought a distant smile to my face.

"Mum's having trouble remembering things. We're going to help her out, okay?" Bhask told her, and she began to sing eensy-weensy spider to me, demonstrating the finger movements slowly. I smiled more broadly at her and pretended to let her teach me. Like I could forget eensy-weensy spider.


	4. Chapter 4

**4.**

The Healers were satisfied that I could leave after another two days. Now that I was faced with the prospect of living with these humans, the Healing Centre wasn't looking quite so ominous. Dorsey and Bhask came to collect me and drove me up through the glowing green light of the rainforest to the cottage, in the foothills of the escarpment, looking out to the millpond sea. I scrutinized the scenery anxiously as we drove, but everything was exotic and unfamiliar, the strange juicy green tropical plants, the blue of the sky, even the constant clammy presence of the hot damp air felt out of place. Though I knew it was me that was out of place. Everything else belonged here.

We pulled up outside an old cottage being overtaken by the undergrowth. Ayasha came running to meet us, and I welcomed the delay in joining the man leaning on the wall in the darkness of the porch. But she soon noticed me lingering in the car and hauled on my arms to get me out.

"Come on, Mummy!"

"Let Mum be for a sec," Bhask told her, lifting her up and tucking her under his arm. I supposed it couldn't be delayed any longer, and made my way slowly up to the house.

"Welcome back," Alex said, and I tried to give him a smile, but it turned out more like a grimace. I took a breath and climbed the stairs, entering the cooler dark of the house. I walked around gingerly, trailing my fingertips over the wooden planking, taking in the cracked window panes, the cosy spaces, counting the number of bedrooms carefully. Problem.

"Um, where do I sleep?" I asked as Dorsey watched me from the kitchen benchtop. I was beginning to feel like an amusing animal that everyone watched excitedly, waiting for their latest gaff.

"Wherever you want," she replied.

"Right, so… Bhask sleeps there, and that looks like Ayasha's room…?"

"And that's Alex's and that's Dorsey's," Bhask finished helpfully.

"So… where's mine?"

They looked at each other, caught out.

"I'll sleep on the couch," Alex said quietly. Great, I thought, he was going to sleep sprawled all over the central living space. No way I could avoid him there. He saw that my expression was still anxious and sighed in quiet exasperation.

"Let's go for a swim," Dorsey said, grabbing some towels.

"Yes lets," I said, relieved for an excuse to get out of the close quarters.

"Really?" Bhask asked, surprised.

"You like swimming, remember?" I told him, still finding it strange to have to look up to find his eyes.

"Sure…"

We drove to a gap in the rainforest canopy made by a waterfall breaking through and smashing itself onto the rocks below. A pillar of sunshine followed the water down, pierced by dragonflies darting to and fro, harassing butterflies off their favourite perches.

The pool at the bottom was deep and dark and wonderfully refreshing after the constant closeness of the damp air. I stretched luxuriously in the water, letting myself sinking deeply into it, feeling the pressure build on my ears, the temperature drop. Then the pressure seemed to build around my chest too, the cold clasping round my neck, and though I tried to ignore it, the longer I stayed in the water, the darker seemed the depths, the heavier my limbs, the shorter my breath. Even if I just swam laps back and forth across the pool, the rocks seemed to grow higher around me, my mouth was too close to the water, my muscles tensing up rather than being soothed by the water. Finally I climbed up the rockfall away from the pool, and sat on a warm sunlit boulder, hugging my knees, confused. But the column of sun melted away the creeping feelings of unease, and slowly I began to relax. Soon Dorsey joined me, stretching out in silence to get the most from the sun. I watched Alex, Bhask, and Ayasha playing marco polo below, easing blindly through the pool on their fingertips, jumping in and out of the water, scatting along the rocks.

"He's good with kids," I murmured.

"Yup." Dorsey leaned her elbows back onto the rock behind. "You can't get your eyes off him, can you?"

"Huh?!" I hadn't been watching _him_, exactly. Only…

"Don't worry, it's quite normal. For you."

"I just, there's something…"

Then the memory hit me. A different waterhole. A different place…

"Flame?"

"I remembered something…" I breathed.

"Go on then?"

Water beading on his back a hot summer's day…

"We had gone for a swim, and he got out, and was lying on the bank, in the sun, and… I was watching him and… I went over to him…" I didn't mention the feel of his warm skin on my cold lips as I drank the beads of water from him in light kisses.

"…And, how did you feel?" Dorsey prompted, "About him?"

"I loved him," I said softly. I could feel that as certain as the rocks beneath my feet.

"Loved? Past tense?" Dorsey said as her face fell. I hugged my legs tighter.

"It's just one memory. There's no connection to who I am. I don't know anything about him."

Dorsey watched me for a few seconds, thoughtfully.

"And how did he feel about you."

"I don't know..," I said, following the memory, "he was looking at me kind of suspiciously... _oh_."

Oh?" she grinned.

"He gave me a hug and a kiss," I said hurriedly, blushing.

"Oh that has to be the edited version!"

I blushed deeper.

"And how did this 'hug and kiss' feel?" she sang, alive with delight.

"Good. Really good," I whispered.

"I think our work here is done," she said, hopping down the rocks towards the others.

***

I went for first shower, while Bhask went for a run. I doubled back to grab a change of clothes, and caught Dorsey and Alex talking.

"I'd advise you to go topless as much as you can," Dorsey was saying, smiling as she cast her eyes over him. He ran his hand through his hair, aggravated.

"I don't want her to like my body, I want her to like me," he muttered angrily. Dorsey wasn't fazed.

"Well, this is a start. A lever. Use it. Trust me." She leant in close towards him and he turned away, frowning.

"I, um, I don't know where my clothes…" I mumbled, looking uncomfortably at the wall. Dorsey pushed off the bench and led me to her bedroom.

"You lost your stuff in the storm," she said, digging through a drawer. "Wear this." I took the slim fitting top and swapped it for a t shirt when she began hunting though another drawer.

"So… so… that guy is Ayasha's father, right?" I started, twisting the t-shirt slowly between my hands.

"Mm-hmm."

"So, him and me are… what?"

She stopped digging and took my hands, holding them still.

"Well, that's up to you I guess."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I would say you were married, but you took your pendant back."

"My…"

"He gave you that ring. You gave him your pendant. Only now you've taken it back. So I don't know what that means."

I chewed on lip, turning that over in my mind.

"I gave him my pendant?"

"Yup."

That sounded serious. Really serious.

"And, and, you and him, you're not…?" I asked evasively, avoiding the concept in my head.

"Me and Alex?" Dorsey said, eyebrows raised. I looked at her, holding my breath, waiting for her answer.

"Why?" she asked, "Would that bother you?"

"Uh…" This should be an easy question. Either it did or it didn't. Which one was it? It might've bothered me before. It shouldn't bother me now. Not logically. I didn't know him anymore. But something about seeing them in the kitchen together grated.

"No," I decided finally, "Why would it bother me?" The answer brought no settling to my churning insides, and I grabbed the clothes and made for the shower, avoiding her powerful stare.

The warm water washed off the constant sheen of sweat the tropics covered you in. It was the right decision. Maybe I had liked him once. God knows why. But I felt nothing for him now. Nothing at all. _No. Thing. At. All._ I thought to myself over and over as I washed my hair. And when I turned the taps off, my mind was pleasantly blank again.

Refreshed, cleared of confusion, I was quite able to keep my eyes off Alex, and my mind off him too. In fact I found it quite easy to ignore him altogether. I sat down with Yash, and she pasted me with a huge smile, pulling out some paper from beneath her pile for me to colour on too. We bent our heads and concentrated on our work. There was silence in the kitchen. And when I dared to glance back, Dorsey was chopping onions alone. Alex must have gone for the next shower.

I went back to my drawing, marveling at the child's industriousness, if not her skill. I had trouble settling on an age for her: her size, her speech, her fine motor skills and the way she interacted with people all led me to different totals. I wondered if there mightn't be something wrong with her, and if so, why it hadn't been fixed.

Footsteps coming back down the corridor alerted me to his presence again, and I tensed in anticipation. He loped into the kitchen barefoot wearing soft tracksuit pants and not much else. And by the way they hugged his behind, really not much else. My eyes stretched over the bulk of his bare shoulders until I dragged them back to the table.

"Daddy," Yash crooned, holding her hands up to him. He pulled her up into his arms and I concentrated hard on the blue square I was filling in, feeling the warmth of the shower radiate off his skin next to me.

"Hmm, you smell like pond, Yash," he murmured as she grinned. "Bath time for you." They were swallowed up back into the dark bowels of the house and I continued colouring absently, concentrating on keeping my mind clear.

"You wanna give me a hand?" Dorsey asked.

"Sorry." I took over the stirring of the bolognaise while she started on the pasta.

"So you're just going to ignore him then?" she asked lightly. I was trapped to the stove.

"Uh…" I shouldn't feel wrong to admit to it, but Dorsey exuded disagreement, for all her calm face and light tone. I was saved from committing to an answer by Bhask arriving back from his run.

"Hi Bhask, bye Bhask," Dorsey said firmly, directing him straight to the shower.

"But-" he objected.

"You stink. And dinner's almost ready."

He gave up and disappeared down the corridor. I wanted to run after him, escape Dorsey's stare. Except that Alex was down there too. And most importantly, that the sauce need stirring. Very careful constant stirring.

"Well?" she pressed, having stirred the pasta into the boiling water and settled it to simmer. Her hands settled naturally on her hips, like an animal making itself look bigger. She no longer had any distractions: I was her full focus. I scraped the bottom of the pot back and forth, stalling.

Alex was coming back down the corridor, having handballed Yash duty to Bhask, and my shoulders unhunched to the same degree as Dorsey backed off. That is to say, only slightly.

"Dorsey been harassing you?" Alex said, his voice casual, but his eyes still formidably intense. I wondered if they ever relaxed. I flipped my eyes back to the bolognaise, unable to think of anything to say that wouldn't sound either too friendly or too cold. What did normal sound like? I felt him sigh silently and collect cutlery for the table, and I snuck glances at him while his back was turned: my gaze snagging on his bear-like hair, the stretch of flat muscle along his side as he twisted, the relaxed way his bare feet hugged the floor… Dorsey watched me watching him, and I tore my eyes away again. She was still watching me, speculative, as she walked slowly towards him, then grabbed his head and kissed him.

"Dorsey!" Alex shouted, whipping his head away and pinning her at arm's length away from him. I looked at them in shock.

"You said it wouldn't bother you. Does it bother you?" Dorsey asked me innocently, but her eyes gleamed.

"No," I said, but I had to grit my teeth and hold myself just right so as not to jump up and explode in her face. It was irrational. Totally irrational. I would just have to wait, and it would go away.

"You'd tell me, if it bothered you, wouldn't you?"

"Sure," I said, getting myself under control, and finally meeting her eyes, _almost_ unconcerned.

"Dinner is served," she said crisply. I went to get the kids, glad of a reason to escape. Only, of course, one of the kids was a monster. Well, an adult. My little Bhask…

He hadn't made it to the shower, having been trapped into listening to Yash as she created fish stories with the soap and wash cloth in the bath. The wash cloth had become a stingray and swam round and round the tub, searching for the soap. I never figured out what the soap was supposed to be. I sudsed her and rinsed her down and herded them to the dinner table as she was still trying to poke her arm through the side of her pyjamas. Alex caught her and pulled her hand through the arm hole as if he did it every night. Maybe he did. I found I resented not knowing things like this.

Bhask and Yash carried the conversation through dinner, the rest of us sitting more or less in silence. Dorsey's silence had a tinge of anger, like I had offended her somehow. Alex's reeked of awkwardness, and mine of confusion and embarrassment in equal measures. Being all of us preoccupied with eating, we finished quickly and waited on Bhask and Ayasha to dawdle from bite to bite between retellings of sparkling dragonflies, water dragons, and glimpses of rainforest birds.

Yash climbed onto my lap as soon as she was done and I hugged her to me close, enjoying the comforting feel of her soft, solid presence. Bhask rambled on, and Dorsey began to collect the plates around him, obviously experienced with his tendency to talk forever once he got going.

"Mum; bed," Yash mumbled finally, her eyelids already sagging under the weight of the day.

"Oh, ok. Goodnight sweetheart."

Yash made no move to get up, and the others watched me expectantly.

"You always put her to bed," Bhask pointed out finally.

"Um, ok. Bhask, you want to give me a hand tonight?"

"Well, uh, normally its-" he turned to look at Alex, but I grabbed his hand and pulled him down the corridor, Yash hefted in the other arm.

"Great, come on."

Dorsey and Alex turned to the washing up without a word.

I released them in Yash's room, sagging with relief at having escaped the twin terrors of both Dorsey and Alex.

"So… um, help Mummy remember what we have to do."

"Clean teeth, into bed, story time, sleeping time," Yash sang fuzzily.

"Right. Bathroom then."

The routine was completed easily enough, and Bhask left to have a proper shower. I hurried down the corridor to the kitchen one last time, thinking with relief I could go to bed now, and escape into sleep for hours and hours. I burst into the kitchen ready to say a quick goodnight and the words never made it from my mouth.

Dorsey was holding Alex's hands, both of them, in both of hers. Then she leant in and kissed him, tenderly, right on the lips. And though he backed away across the kitchen floor, she followed relentlessly, not letting her lips lose contact. The sight brought a strange pain to my heart.

"Stop it," I said, hurrying over, then hesitating, hovering. She had backed him into a corner of the benchtop, and he couldn't escape.

"Don't!" I said urgently, my hands tightening into claws, and he turned his face away, his whole body tense against her.

"Why?" Dorsey asked nonchalantly, kissing his neck with light touches down to his shoulder. I had no idea why. But it was unbearable. It hurt.

"It's wrong," I finally managed, itching to separate them.

"Why is it wrong?" she pressed, slinging an arm round his shoulders and leaning the full length of her side into him.

"Dorsey, stop it." Alex muttered.

"Because he's not yours," I whispered, struggling with the feelings bubbling up from deep inside. Alex went very still, listening to me.

"Oh really. Then whose is he?" she said, drawing the tips of her fingers up and down the back of his neck til he shivered and shrugged her off.

"He's mine," I breathed, gutted with emotion.

"He has a name you know," Dorsey finally left him and came over to me, searching out my eyes.

"Dorsey, leave her alone."

"Say his name, Flame."

I could feel her eyes burning into me. I had to try a few times, but finally whispered a broken "Alex." And the feel of the word in my mouth unleashed a hurricane of images that went with those feelings. Him walking through the woods, rejoining us after a long time away. Him lying in a camp bed on a wooded mountain saddle, bruises fading from his face. Him waving me over, unhurt amidst a chaos of charred rags and burnt people. Smiling sleepily in a hospital bed, his head shaved to stubble. Looking right through me at a conference, as if I didn't exist...

I backed away from the memories and found the front door behind me.

"I'm, ah, I'm just going to get some… air," I said.

"No, Alex, you are seriously the last person she wants to see right now," I heard Dorsey say as I escaped into the still humid night, "Give her some space, she'll come back. Just wait."

The memories stretched the insides of my head, and I walked and walked along the dark mountain road to give them enough space, to make them fit. They were still just disconnected pictures and feelings, like pools in a dried up river bed. There was no flow. But I wasn't sure I could cope with a rain storm right now. After a while I could pick up each memory and examine it without feeling drowned in emotion. Would all my memories be like this? Or was it just those associated with Alex?

Finally I'd done all I could, and made my way back to the cottage, head ringing with fatigue. I must have been longer than I thought, as when I came back the house lights were all dark bar the porch light, silhouetting Alex sitting on the swing seat. The sight revived me instantly, apprehension and, and, was it _excitement_? thrilling through my veins. I approached slowly as a night bird called a haunting note into the silence, and sat tentatively in the opposite corner.

"Hello," I said, to break the mounting silence.

"Hello," he returned, watching me carefully. I didn't like the way his eyes felt on me. It was very… distracting. Finally he looked away and I could relax a little. This was Alex. I knew Alex. Apparently. Apparently rather well. I was simultaneously inhabited by the feeling of sitting next to a complete stranger and sitting next to the man from my memories. I wanted to be so much closer to him, and at the same time my mind begged me not to move.

"So you're Alex," I ventured, rubbing at some pollen on my pants. Damn hibiscus.

"Uh huh," he replied, still wary, "And it seems you're Hungry Flame."

I cringed.

"Sorry. Flame is fine."

"Really?"

"Really."

I liked the Alex in my head. I liked him a lot. I wanted to like the Alex sitting next to me. And then I realized I wanted him to like me too. I shifted a little closer.

"You remembered something then?"

"A few somethings," I nodded, frowning.

"Not good somethings?" he asked gently.

I shrugged, frustrated by my inability to put my thoughts into words.

"Kind of… painful. Some were good. It's confusing."

I glanced at him. His eyes were wonderfully patient.

"Why did you shave your head?" I asked.

"What?"

"I remember you, lying in a hospital bed, with stubble for hair."

"Oh. That wasn't me. Falling Smoke did it."

"Who?"

"Aah," he said, sucking in a breath and looking away, "maybe another day."

Gingerly, I let my head fall onto his shoulder. He didn't stiffen beneath me, and I began to think about relaxing.

"Why were you so sad, in the camp between the mountains?"

He was silent for a moment.

"Margie's camp?"

I nodded. The name fit.

He took a long time to reply.

"I didn't think you liked me anymore. I… missed you."

"oh."

His draped his arm slowly over my waist, his hand hanging in mid air. I had a foolish urge to press it against my belly, but resisted.

"Why didn't you like me, at the conference?"

"Which conference?" he asked, "In the desert?"

"No, it was in a building, you looked straight through me… didn't you recognize me?"

He pressed his lips to my head for a moment.

"It was during a war between Souls and humans. I wasn't allowed to recognize you. I wanted to look at you so bad… I hadn't seen you in so long, I just wanted to…" he sighed finally, unable to say what he wanted.

"You're kinda easy to talk to, you know that?" I murmured, settling into the warmth of his embrace with a faint feeling of forbidden satisfaction.

I could feel him smile on my head. The moon rose slowly over the lush forest, its reflection in the ocean skittering at the end of an invisible leash. A cool breeze wandered through the tropical night, barely enough for the palms to bother moving. I let my eyes close.

"Where are we sleeping tonight?"Alex murmured, then tensed anxiously, "No I didn't mean that…"

I waited til he relaxed again before replying. "It's comfy here, isn't it? Let's not go anywhere for a while."

He seemed ok with that, and I relaxed deeper into him, letting my thoughts drift away.

***

I woke up in the double bed, alone. This was not right. I hunted Alex down and found him on the sofa.

"What are you doing here?" I said, shaking his shoulder.

"I was keeping my disturbing eyes off you," he mumbled, twisting his body round to face me sleepily.

"This is not your bed. I remember."

"Do you," he said, waking up a bit more.

He heaved himself up and followed me closely back to the bedroom.

"This is your bed. You sleep there, and I sleep here. Right?"

He looked at our allocated spaces with a slightly bemused look.

"Right," he muttered.

***

Dorsey was cooking something for breakfast, using an unnecessary amount of pots and pans, it seemed to me, listening to them all clang off each other repeatedly. Alex rolled off his side of the bed and I followed at his heels, still stuffed with sleep.

Dorsey was handing frying pans and lids to Yash for inspection, who was sitting on the floor and bashing them against each other to choose the best one for breakfast.

"Oh, you're up!" she said brightly, looking up to see us emerge from the corridor. Then her eyebrows shot up and she pulled herself up onto the bench top and sat there grinning, looking at us from one to the other.

"You slept with him! She slept with you?" she said, almost incredulous.

Alex's elbows sank to the benchtop and he held his head in his hands.

"I take it that's a no," she continued, her grin fading.

"Dorsey!" Alex groaned.

"I did sleep with him," I protested.

"Then why is he so happy."

"I don't know. But I did."

"In the same bed."

"Dorsey, leave it!" Alex hissed.

"Yes, he took the left side and I took the right. That's right, isn't it?"

"Uh… ok. You slept separately on the same bed. Alex, you want to go outside for a minute?"

He gave her a tortured look and slunk away, grabbing Yash on the way out.

"Ok, that's not how you sleep together."

"Oh."

"You sleep in his arms. Always. Not on the other side of the bed."

"Oh."

"Try it out sometime, you may even find you like it."


	5. Chapter 5

5.

"There's no bloody food in the shop. The flights have been cancelled because another storm front is coming in. It's not even really storm season. And I mean, doesn't that make you think they should be landing _extra_ food?" Dorsey said, vexation pulling her face into a sour frown.

"That's it. We're outta here," Alex said, "Yash, pack up your stuff, we're leaving!"

"Where are we going?" I asked.

We all looked at Dorsey.

"Yanni's house," Dorsey and Bhask smiled at each other, "Blackheath will be there."

***

It was three days solid driving to Yanni's house and the closer we got, the more unsettled Alex became.

"What's he so jumpy about?" I asked Dorsey finally.

"He's decided the first words that come out of his mouth need to be to tell Blackheath I kissed him."

"Twice," Alex muttered.

"I take it this Blackheath is not going to be pleased?"

"He better not be," she muttered, "No, I daresay he will not be pleased. But it'll do him good I reckon. Some of his own medicine."

I glanced at her.

"I caught him kissing his doctor a few weeks ago," she muttered.

I frowned.

"You like this Blackheath, right?"

"Yes, yes I do."

"But he cheated on you? And you still like him?"

"No… he just kissed her. Well. Let her kiss him. He couldn't exactly escape. And… oh, it's a long story."

"We've got time."

"I'll tell you when you remember the first half."

"What first half?"

"Exactly."

***

We pulled up outside a two storey brick and stone house amidst golden fields. I stretched in the car seat, as I looked around.

"This is your house?" I asked Dorsey.

"Actually it's Yanni's house. Our house is ages away, at the base of the mountains. But it's not big enough for all of us, so…"

A man walked out of the house and, from the beeline both Alex and Dorsey made for him, I could only guess it must be Blackheath. I started to pull our bags out of the car and the next thing I knew, someone had grabbed my arm, spun me around and was kissing me hard and hot. On the lips. Finally he let me go and I could see his face properly.

_That face_…!

Alex caught me as I tried to stagger away and tripped and Dorsey slapped Blackheath hard.

"You bastard!" she screamed. She had raised her hand to hit him again but he caught it lightening fast.

I wrapped my arms around my head and kept trying to pull away. Alex held my arms tight, his fingers like steel bands around my triceps.

"It's alright, it's ok-"

"No, not ok!" I said, my voice high and unsteady.

"Flame-"

"Let go of me!" I wailed, "He tried to drown me! He tried to shoot me! How is that ok??"

They all looked at me, shocked, and couldn't find an answer.

"You're his friends! What did you bring me here for? Did you think I'd never remember? Were you just going to let him kill me? Smother me in the night?"

"Flame!" Alex shouted, shaking me.

"Let go of me!" I shouted back, the ability to think finally breaking through my terror and I twisted sharply out of his grip. I turned to run but Dorsey tackled me and sat on me, and I was eating dust.

"Get a hold of yourself," she said right into my ear as I struggled uselessly beneath her, "He is not going to kill you. He doesn't even want to. Anymore," she added a little regretfully, "Besides which, I'd kill him if he tried. Alright?"

When I finally gave up struggling she let me up.

"Orange juice, anyone?" an older man asked from the verandah.

***

It was cool and dark inside the house, a haven after the blare of the sun outside, and the cool orange juice was the nectar of life after the dusty roads. I drank silently as the others caught up with recent goings on, but I kept a careful eye on them. Finally, they were all in front of me. I turned to sprint for the door and forgot about the low beam. The world dipped and swayed around me as I lay on the cool wooden floorboards. I screwed my eyes shut against the heaving motion, feeling blood trickle from my ear.

"Flame are you alright?" Voices came distantly through the ringing.

"See, I don't have to try and kill her, she's doing perfectly fine herself." That was Blackheath.

"Open your eyes." That was Dorsey.

"Don't want to," I said. She tried to prise my eyes open, and I twisted my head away from her. Whoa, moving head not good. I pressed my head still between my fists.

"World looks funny. Makes me sick," I whispered. I concentrated on cool shallow breathing to keep my stomach from rising further. There was blissful silence for a moment as they others considered what to do.

"Take her to Giulia," Blackheath muttered.

***

Alex carried me inside. I knew this because the heat of the sun was gone, and the orange on my eyelids darkened to black. But I didn't dare open them. I'd already lost my orange juice twice on the way here, and wasn't keen on any more acid in my throat.

"What happened?" I heard a new voice ask. Must be this Giulia.

There was a pause. I wandered if they wanted me to answer.

"She slipped and hit her head," Blackheath answered finally. I grimaced, remembering him saying the same thing another time. Only this time it was more or less true. Firm fingers tilted my head away from Alex's chest and prized my eye open, blinding it with a flashlight.

"Fucking hell!" Giulia hissed, pushing away from me. I felt Alex's arm tighten around me and had a moment of fear that I was seriously injured. I was suddenly very grateful for Alex's arms surrounding me.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Giulia went on, furious, "What part of Soul-free zone don't you understand?" Oh. That was the problem. The usual problem with me in a Soul-free zone. Blackheath tried to get a word in edgeways, but she was hearing none of it.

"I don't care what you want with her. Get her out of here. Now!"

I groaned to think of another car ride so soon, but Alex was already marching me out of there. I tried hard to pretend to be somewhere else, somewhere pleasant and familiar and quiet and still, but the noise and the dust and the shaking of the car were ever present on the edges of my illusion.

Finally, finally I could sink into the cool sheets of one of Yanni's beds, and be absolutely still. My breath eased out of my chest. _Bliss_.

"Let me have a look." It was Giulia's voice. What was she doing here? I thought we had left her behind. She must have come after us. She did sound little contrite, as if vaguely ashamed of her actions at her clinic. But not ashamed enough to apologise, or speak directly to me. I wasn't human, after all.

Strong, delicate fingers tilted my head this way and that, opened my eyes and watched them flick and spin. I screwed my eyes shut as soon as I could and concentrated fiercely on not throwing up.

"How does she go on her feet?"

"She doesn't. Like a floor magnet."

"She's stuffed her inner ear – sense of balance, all that. She'll be sea-sick for a while. Must've hit it pretty hard?" She paused but the others said nothing. I wondered if she thought someone had hit me. I wondered if Dorsey had bruised Blackheath's face. I wondered what story she was concluding while no one said anything. This the doctor that Dorsey had caught Blackheath kissing not so long ago.

"Rest. Monitor. If still no better, rest some more," she said finally, rising as if to go.

"And then?" Dorsey asked, anxious.

"Get one of those fancy Soul hospitals to implant her a new inner ear I spose."

"Do they do that?"

"How would I know?" her voice leaked irritation, and I heard them move away to let me sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

6.

I opened my eyes to find Alex watching me anxiously. He didn't show much, but the set of his mouth and the draw of his shoulders told me plenty.

"Alex," I whispered happily, reaching out to him.

"Oh thank god for that," he breathed, catching my hand and holding it to his lips.

"Thank god for what?"

"Not having to go through that whole rigmarole again..."

"What rigmarole?"

"Stop it." His eyes brooked no disobeyance.

"Worth a try." I grinned and turned my head a little to watch him sit back. Bad move. Instant nausea hit me like an ocean wave, drenching every cell in my body. I clamped my eyes shut and breathed light and shallow til it passed.

"Feel like a sponge bath?" Alex said in a faintly evil voice.

"No," I murmured, baffled and slightly repelled, trying vainly to pull my hand out of his.

"That knock didn't happen to loosen up any memories, did it."

"I don't know. How would I know?" I opened one eye and found the world to be almost still. Good enough. I opened the other.

"You're asking me?" He passed my hand from one hand to the other, and I was mesmerized by the play of muscles in his forearms, "You don't think Blackheath's going to kill you anymore do you?"

"I think… I think you'll look after me."

"Hmm. Well, that's a start."

"Surely I didn't trust this Blackheath before?"

He had difficulty answering that. "You don't remember?"

"You want to help me remember?"

"I want you to remember on your own. I don't want you to remember what I tell you to remember."

"How very noble," I said, but felt cheated. What if I never remembered? What if all I ever had was isolated ponds of memory? I was ready for some serious rain.

"What do you want to remember, especially?" he said carefully, and I got the impression he wasn't going to hold onto his noble ideals for very long if I continued looking grumpy.

"Everything!" I felt his level of nobleness start to rise again fast. "Oh fine then. How did I end up with a… uh, with a human?" He tried not to look offended and I squeezed his hand apologetically. But it seemed he was more offended that he let on, and didn't reply.

"I mean, you're great and all, obviously, it's just that…well, most humans I've met, I've been catching and taking to be implanted. They don't usually ask me out for coffee. They don't usually like me at all."

"You did catch me. Sort of. But you didn't turn me in."

"Why not?" I asked, frowning. It didn't sound like me.

He sighed. "You really should remember this yourself. This is only my perspective. It might not be right."

"No, go on."

"Aaah, I took your pendant, and your gun, and made you take me to see Bhask..."

"You took my pendant?" I muttered, seeing a sandy river shore at dawn in my thoughts, feeling exhaustion pulling at me. He _had_ taken it.

"I like that that's what you're concerned about, not the other two," he chuckled.

"Dorsey said I gave it to you!"

"Oh, you did. Later. Much later. A lot goes on in a decade."

"Alright, enough."

"Do you remember?"

"I remember you punched me. Really hard! And I pulled you out of that river and you tricked me."

"What a wonderfully selective memory you have."

"I didn't like you at all." _Then_.

"I wasn't that keen on you either," he murmured, but there was something in his voice that made me think he wasn't being entirely truthful.

There was a knock on the door and Yanni's voice floated around to me. I thought about turning over and left it at the thought stage.

"Alex, I believe they want you downstairs."

He kissed my hand and left. Yanni came around so I could see him.

"Are you sick of visitors yet?"

"Not at all."

"We didn't really get a chance to talk. I'll admit I'm rather curious about my latest guest."

"Sorry. I probably didn't make the greatest first impression."

"A little clumsy perhaps. You have truly lost your memory?"

"Some of it."

"A fairly important part of it, according to your family."

"Well, yeah, they would think that. I lost the parts they were in. The past ten years or so."

"Ten years. That's a long time out of a life. But you still retain a sense of your self?"

"A sense of myself? Like who I am?"

He nodded.

"I guess. I mean I still know I like cheese-"

"You know you like cheese and you didn't know you liked Alex," he chuckled. I gave a short laugh. It was a little odd, looking at it like that. "I'm glad you can laugh about it. Dorsey instructed me it was not a laughing matter. I got the idea Alex was rather distressed?"

Poor Alex. He would have wondered if he'd lost me for a while there. Lost me while I was still in plain view…

"Cheese was post decade. Alex was pre. That's why I remember cheese," I said, feeling the thoughts click into place and feeling less guilty. "I haven't met you before, right?" I asked warily.

"Today was the first time I met you, Alex, or Ayasha."

"Oh good. Then we're starting on a par." That was a relief. I was sick of being behind the eight ball.

"Get back here!" Blackheath roared from downstairs, and shouts erupted from outside, punctuated by the strange barking of a dog. The sounds of struggle streamed inside, and continued up the stairs. I turned carefully to face the door, giving myself time to get used to the spinning before it opened.

"Flame, this is Ally. Ally; Flame," Dorsey said, slightly out of breath, indicating a girl who must have been about Yash's age, but fury replacing Yash's goodwill in her sullen face. And while Yash was obviously still a child through and through, this girl seemed somehow much older. Blackheath was holding her so tight I wondered if he'd lifted her bodily up the stairs.

"Hi. Sorry I'm not getting up so to say hello properly," I said.

"S'alright. Dad explained," she muttered.

Oh, she was Blackheath's daughter? Did that mean she was Dorsey's too?

"Um, have I met you before?" I said eventually, as no one else seemed to be adding anything to the conversation.

"No."

"Thank god for that. You and Yanni are my favouritest people right now."

There was a chorus of protest from the others, and Yash pushed Ally aside and sat beside me resentfully.

"Oh, Yash, sorry."

"Can I go now? I said hi," Ally said resentfully.

"Technically you didn't-" Blackheath said, but she had already twisted away and pounded down the stairs creating a rolling, distancing thunder. Blackheath growled in frustration and chased after her.

"That's your daughter?" I asked.

"That's my daughter," Dorsey sighed, sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed.

"I never would have guessed."

"You're being sarcastic, aren't you?"

"Yup."

"She's uh, she's not too keen on Souls."

"Oh."

"Most of them anyway. She does do exceptions."

"Oh good."

"Don't let it bother you though: most of the time she's not so keen on me either. Blackheath's the only one who can do anything with her."

***

A plate was sent up to me for dinner, but the others ate together downstairs. My faithful Yash sat with me though, determined to become my favouritest again. I sent her downstairs with my empty plate and instructions to summon Alex.

"What?" he said, poking his head in the door.

"You're not going to leave me up here alone all night, are you?" I said, holding out my hand to him.

"Maybe I'm sleeping with Dorsey tonight," he said, keeping his face impassive.

I laughed and he came over and took my hand, sitting on the bed. "Blackheath would thump you."

"At least," he agreed, smiling softly. I pulled him down next to me so I could see his eyes.

"What's that frown for?" he asked gently, as if it were a very serious matter to him.

"I can't figure out why I like you so much. You're mean to me."

"Not all the time."

I started to roll my eyes and lost track of the relative position of ceiling and floor. Alex squeezed my hand sympathetically.

"But I guess I've often wondered myself. So you're alright with the human thing now?"

"Yeah, you're alright. Just takes some getting used to."

"Same with you."

"See? Mean!" I opened my eyes and caught him grinning. "It can't be just because you're pretty."

"Handsome?" he offered, cringeing at 'pretty'. But I was lost in thought.

"Don't think too hard," he sighed.

"Mum?" Yash was peering round the door. Alex beckoned her in, "Bed time?"

"Oh baby, Mummy can't put you to bed tonight."

She looked profoundly unhappy and I reached out for a hug. I was getting seriously sick of being stuck to this bed.

"Don't want to go to sleep then," she muttered, pressing her head into my shoulder.

"What about Daddy, can't he do it? Or Bhask?"

Minute sniffles came from her buried head.

"Ummm… you're just not going to go to sleep then?"

The head nodded.

"What if you sleep with Mummy and Daddy tonight?" Alex asked gently, rubbing her back. There was a deeper, rallying sniff and she pulled away from my shoulder.

"Kay."

"Just tonight, mind."

She was already insinuating herself between us. Alex caught my eye and I hid my smile at his martyred look.


	7. Chapter 7

**7.**

"What does Blackheath do?" I asked Dorsey. She was keeping me company while I was bedridden, and we were both profoundly bored. Bhask had driven to the nearest city to restock on a few things, and the boys were helping out on the farm. The day stretched endlessly ahead.

"He… uh, he… he's involved with human development associations?"

"Huh. I wouldn't have picked that."

"What would you have picked?"

Murderer came first to mind. Then thief, thug, minder, guerilla, soldier, security… I kept thinking til I got to something Dorsey might find acceptable.

"Seeker?"

She laughed wide eyed.

"Oh god no. No. No, he's not really into law enforcement. Not like that." She smoothed the coverlet for a moment, "I think he'd be a great dancer. One of those professional ones, like you used to see on tv? Oh, you wouldn't remember…"

"I've seen movies though," I frowned; he did have the body for it, all hard, lean, muscle, and speed, if not the gracefulness Dorsey had. "I don't suppose you can get jobs like that out here?"

"No. And it's not like he'd ever do a job like that anyway."

We reverted to staring into space.

***

"I am so sick of lying here!"

"Get used to it. Plenty more of that in stock." Giulia was checking how I was getting along. I was not. I was going crazy; I was ready to try anything to be able to stand up, even just to sit up!

"It's just trauma right? I've just… torn something? _Trauma is just putting back the pieces, _a voice said in my head, and I listened to it for a moment, trying to put my finger on where it came from_._

"A hole between your middle and inner ear," Giulia replied shortly.

"How many ears have I got? Draw me a picture."

She sketched the structure of the outer, middle and inner ears for me.

"Ok, so if we could get in there, fix that, I'd be fine?"

"Sure. _If_ you could you get in there, and fix that."

My finger followed the path to the outside world. Only one thing in the way.

"What's between here and here?"

"Your eardrum."

"Can you get a needle through it?"

"Yeah…?"

"What if, what if we dissolved some Heal into a syringe and just injected it into the tear?"

"Could do… sure, we could do that."

"Really?"

"Wanna give it a try?"

"God yes! Anything to be able to get up. I think Alex's got some Heal somewhere…"

Giulia left to track him down and soon returned with him hunting her heels, looming over her like a thunderstorm.

"Flame..." he growled.

"Hiya," I said brightly, buoyed by the chance of escaping my bed.

"What's going on?"

"Giulia's going to Heal my ear."

"I thought it was the inside of your head that's damaged."

I gave him a look: that could be taken two ways.

"It is," Giulia replied, "I'm going to stick one of these babies in there." She pulled out a nine inch spinal needle.

"You are going to put one of those in her head."

"Yup."

"I don't think so."

"Well, good thing we don't have to ask for your consent," Giulia said.

"Flame…"

"Trust her; she's a doctor."

Alex called for Blackheath a little louder than he really needed to.

"What's up?" Blackheath said, leaning on the doorframe.

"Your Doctor is going to stick one of those into Flame's head."

Blackheath said nothing, but his face perked into an interested expression. Giulia smiled, "Blackheath, hold her head really, really still."

But Alex gave him a glare that froze him to the spot and knelt by my head instead, putting his palm to my face. The warm touch of his hand was lovely, but also disquieting somehow…

"So, you're with us now?" Giulia asked him, dissolving the Heal in homemade fluids.

He didn't look particularly happy about it. He looked kind of angry…

"You've done this before," I whispered, remembering.

"I can assure you I haven't," he said.

"You were kneeling like that, your hand… and you were really, really angry. With me." I crossed my arms over my belly. "I was pregnant!"

"Ready?" Giulia asked, pressing the last air bubbles out of the syringe.

"Uh, I think we might have a slight delay here," Blackheath noted.

"I wasn't angry with you. Well maybe a little. I was angry at me, at everything-" Alex said, sighing.

"It was at that conference, those Treaty talks, where you wouldn't even look at me!"

"I didn't know you were pregnant."

"How could you not know?"

"You didn't tell me."

_Oh_, I thought. But still…

"When I found out, I came back as soon as I could."

"Do you want to try this or not?" Giulia asked.

Alex frowned, but held his tongue and looked at me. I narrowed my eyes at him; "Wouldn't miss it for the world."

Alex's grip closed around my head like iron bands. Giulia pulled down on my ear lobe and angled a torch with one hand, then sprayed in some Outside Clean, and threaded the needle in, deeper and deeper. I felt it bite through my ear drum and prick onto the other side of my middle ear.

"Ok, ok," I hissed, eyes squeezed shut against the pain, "you're there."

She advanced the needle slightly one more time then squirted firmly as she withdrew.

"Shit!" I hissed, clamping my hand over my ear as soon as she was out.

"Hand off," she ordered, and reluctantly I let her take it away. But already I felt better. The world was feeling steadier and steadier. She batted Alex's hands away.

"Fixed," she pronounced, tilting my head this way and that, "right?"

"Oh wow," I breathed, sitting up.

"Better?" Alex asked, worried still.

"_Oh_ yeah."

So that night I got to eat downstairs with everyone else. And put Ayasha to bed, to her slight dismay; she'd hoped for at least another few nights of sleeping with us. But tonight, I would have Alex all to myself.

Relaxing in front of the fire, cosy in Alex's arms, I twisted my ring round my finger, admiring the play of the firelight on the silver. Then I took my pendant off my neck and handed it to him.

"Hey hey hey," he said softly, stopping me, hands covering mine.

"What?"

"Do you even remember why you gave that to me?"

"I loved you. You loved me. You gave me a ring…?"

"That's Icefire's pendant."

"I know."

He waited, looking at me, and I wandered what he was waiting for.

"Don't give it back to me til you can remember why you gave it to me in the first place," he murmured, his face closed. Hesitantly, hurt and puzzled, I tied it back round my neck.

***


	8. Chapter 8

**8.**

The next day, Bhask came back, calling out ahead as he tore up the stairs.

"Have I got a treasure for you! You're going to love me for this!"

"Like she ever stopped," Dorsey muttered. Bhask loaded a disc into the screen. It was filled with tv reports, newspaper clippings, and photos of everything public that I'd been involved in for the last decade. Alex being taken from his national park. The human voice project. The congress. The treaty talks. A picture of Alex and I getting married in the desert. The southern offensive. The peace rally, the plane crash, Ayasha's removal, the tropical cyclone over Cairns… the flood gates were unlocked. Just one day after escaping from my dreaded bed, I was voluntarily holed up there for hours, poring over everything, remembering.

"Having fun?" Alex said, lying down next to me.

"I'm remembering! It's really me!"

His hand rubbed the small of back affectionately. He scrolled down to our wedding photo.

"Tell me about that, then."

I laughed. "You didn't want to marry me. Gariagdy had to trick you into it!"

"You totally set me up!"

"I had no idea what was going on! _You_ were the one who was translating for _me_!"

"The blind leading the blind," he grinned.

"Pretty much," I laughed.

Underneath the photo was the article about the plane crash in the north, and my smile melted away.

"That wasn't so much fun," I said quietly. He squeezed my shoulders.

"Good thing you didn't get on that flight, in the end. But such a shame you couldn't have seen that place. It was beautiful."

"I did see it, a little bit, in your memories."

"Oh right. Sort of."

"Besides, that's another Soul-free zone that takes the meaning fairly literally I think."

"Did they ever catch those guys?"

"No." I reminded myself to look up the file when we got home.

"Mummy," came a plaintive voice from the doorway, and I tore myself away to put Yash to bed. It was not an ordeal really, especially now that I could remember why it was so important to her that I did it. She had sat by her Daddy for much too long not to learn a healthy respect for the powers of sleep.

But when the ritual had been concluded and she was safely sleeping, I returned to Bhask's treasures, remembering late into the night.

***

The morning light was barely making it through the windows when Dorsey jumped on my bed. And kept jumping. I realized Alex must've got up to help with the farm, else he'd have done something about her by now.

"Ok, I'm awake. What."

"Bhask's girlfriend came over last night"

"What!" I was wide awake now, "Bhask has a girl?"

"Why do you think he goes running every day for? To impress you?"

"And she was here? Why didn't anyone get me! I couldn't even say hello?" I wondered if she was anti-Soul like the others here… surely no girlfriends of Bhask's could be like that?

"It wasn't that kind of a visit," and her eyes gleamed.

"Oh." _Right_. "But hang on, why don't I know anything about this? He hasn't said a word!"

"That's boys for you."

"But Bhask…"

"He's a boy, deal with it. Don't you want to know about the girl?"

"Yes!! Who is she?"

"Well, you know when Blackheath shot Bhask, during the war? There was this girl looking after him-"

"Oh, her! Yeah, um… Maddy. Maddison." I took a while to bring up her name, and I realized that I had not remembered everything. The parts of my life that weren't covered in the newspaper still lay shrouded and waiting for release.

Dorsey stared at me, horrified.

"You knew? I don't believe this. How am I the only person not to know?"

"He told me when he got back. You were going after Blackheath at the time."

"Right. Never mind. Anyway, I was wondering why Bhask never shacked up with anyone, not like long term anyway, and I figure maybe he was pining after an old flame, and I was talking to Blackheath about it, and he mentioned this Maddy girl."

"Maddison, yeah." The memory became clearer the more I concentrated; the afternoon sun, the grass beneath...

"Anyway, so I tracked her down, and turns out she's out here too. Lots of the Southern offensive people are, of course, so I arranged for them to meet-"

"Whoa, Dorse, slow down, you _what_?"

"Calm down, it's not like it was high tea. It turns out that Maddy was teaching a first aid course a few towns over, so I drove him down there on the pretext of some band, and 'happened' to get the night 'wrong'. So as we're searching for something else to do, we come upon this flier for the first aid course. And there was nothing else to do, so why not? We turn up with a few minutes to spare, and they are just staring at each other, like ZINGGG! There were practically sparks going between them, it was so sweet. I don't know how much first aid he learnt, but I'd bet he do that course again any day."

"So -"

"Hold your horses. So there was this meeting, and Blackheath knew her people would be there. That's why we couldn't come up straight away: we had to go and see if she was there, see what her people were like…"

"We?"

"I can't say I wasn't interested. And she was there, hanging off the arm of this total chimp, Diaz. Oh, but it was so cute to see Bhask trying to look all Anti-Soul tough, when if anyone had talked to him for a second…"

"No one talked to him?"

"It wasn't in his best interest. He wasn't there to talk to anyone anyway. You can get in a whole lot of trouble really quick by talking at one of those things."

"You know this from personal experience?"

"I was warned. Anyway, nothing happened but firey looks, right, and so we left to go meet you guys, and Bhask's all at a loss at what to do, and now she comes right on over!"

"But, she has a boyfriend…"

"Yeah, nasty piece of work, too. Chet Diaz. Blackheath's a total angel next to him."

"So…"

"Don't look at me! I don't know! But she came. So that says a lot, don't you think?"

"Maybe she came to say goodbye."

"Ever the optimist," Dorsey said, disgusted.

"But she's got a boyfriend!" I insisted.

"Doesn't mean she's stuck with him forever."

"A nasty piece of work boyfriend?"

"And Bhask has Blackheath behind him?"

"The total angel."

"Well… ok, so you wouldn't want to be on his bad side… This is good news Flame!"

But I couldn't help but feel this was trouble.

"Ugh, I don't why I bothered to tell you anything at all," Dorsey said, flouncing downstairs in a huff.


	9. Chapter 9

Ch 9.

"Picnic," Yash said, eyes bright with excitement.

"Now you're no longer trapped to one room, its time you saw more of the place than this house," Bhask added by way of explanation. From the vaguely flat way he said this, I figured this trip was more about cheering him up than engaging in illicit Soul tourism in a Soul-free zone.

"Is that safe?" Alex asked.

"It'll be fine. We'll go somewhere out of the way." Dorsey said.

We all piled into the car along with the mounds of picnic paraphernalia. We sat, waiting in the growing heat, as Blackheath slammed doors increasing loudly inside the house.

"We're leaving!" Dorsey shouted finally.

"I can't find Ally!" Blackheath shouted back, and punctuated his statement with a further door slam.

"That's because she doesn't want to be found!" Dorsey called back in a long suffering way.

"You can't leave her here," I leant between the front seats to tell her, shocked.

"Sure we can," Dorsey replied easily, as if it were routine. Yanni patted my arm.

"This house knows all about angry little girls," he said knowingly, "It will look after them."

"She Doesn't Want To Come!" Dorsey shouted, making each word distinct, as if talking to someone very stubborn, a little slow, and rather hard of hearing.

"It's not her decision!" Blackheath growled back.

Dorsey muttered to herself under her breath and started the car, driving off towards the gate. Within seconds, Blackheath was pounding up alongside and had jumped in. Dorsey barely slowed down. He glared at her, and she continued to drive as if he didn't exist.

We drove for hours through the sheep paddocks and wheat fields, Bhask bumping around in the back, then pulled off to follow an endless dirt track through the scrub. We finally stopped and when the dust settled we were squeezed into a narrow cleft in the limestone, the rear of the car blocking the gap nicely.

"Last one in's a rotten egg!" Bhask called, sliding over us out the door and sprinting off at once. Yash ran after him as fast as her smaller legs could take her, soon disappearing around a twist in the rock.

"Yashie, hang on!" Alex grabbed a bag and jogged after them. We divided the rest up between ourselves and slogged like laden mules down the thin track. I kept my eyes on my footing in the loose rocks, and it wasn't til the others were already dumping their loads that I looked up and saw the limestone had widened spectacularly, revealing a wide tan river easing through the grasses like an enormous brown snake, just as Bhask leapt in with a splash. Alex had managed to grab Yash and was rubbing sunscreen into her back while she champed at the bit to get in the water.

Yash noticed my pause and called back, "No sharks here, they keep to the ear-gation channels. The bunyips keeps them out of the rivers." Alex finally released her and she ran down and eased into the water the slow way.

Dorsey and Blackheath shot dark looks at each other and murmured "Ally…!"

"Now don't go blaming her automatically," Yanni spoke up a little bashfully, "she's not responsible for everything…" then he dived in and swam purposefully upstream.

"Let's go give these bunyips some lunch then…Flame?"

"Uh…" I said, backing up.

"No, stop it," Dorsey said, marching back to me, "You like swimming. You swam in Cairns."

"That was before I remembered..." and even then, that waterhole had seemed somewhat evil…

"You swam on the reef," Alex said, coming up behind me, and his quiet, sure voice seemed to still me. I did swim on the reef; I could feel the liquid sunshine bathing me, the delight of splashing around with Yashie, floating…

"Yeah…" I said, needing just a little more convincing. His hands rubbing my upper arms did it nicely.

"Come on," he said, and I would have followed him anywhere. We dropped a trail of outer clothing and waded in.

The water was like iced tea, deliciously cool and just the same see through brown. Alex towed me into the deeper water, my arms stretched out around his neck, my body floating carelessly out behind. I laid my head down on my shoulder and admired the view. The limestone reared around us, creating an amphitheatre which held a tiny corner of gum forest, a swathe of grasses, and the river. At either end, the river narrowed and cut through sheer cliffs of rock, twisting and turning as if trying to break free.

"Not so bad, huh?" Alex asked, and I shifted my cheek on my shoulder so I could look into his eyes.

"Not bad at all," I murmured. He stilled, treading water, and let my momentum wash me into him. Our kiss was interrupted by a mud pie splatting directly onto his back.

"Pick on someone your own size!" Bhask called, and Alex obediently chased him down the river, his fingers methodically gouging and throwing mud pies. The water lapped cool on my arms where before there had been the warmth of his skin .

Yash was picking her way towards me and I pulled myself shallower along the river bed so she wouldn't have to get out of her depth. When I beached next to her she slipped into my arms, and I turned over, keeping her nestled in a basket of my floating arms and legs.

"Ally isn't really your favouritest. Not really…?" she asked, playing her fingers through the surface of the water and watching the way the light bent and coloured them.

"No, sweetheart," I said, kissing her head. She didn't look 100% convinced. I picked up her hand and held it to my chest. "Ally doesn't make me paper frogs, or give me goodnight kisses, or let me play with her, or give the bestest hugs in the world. You're the only one that does all those things."

"She doesn't let me play with her either," Yash replied, looking rather pleased, "She only plays with her dog."

Alex came back, wading upstream with Bhask over his shoulder, carefully rubbing mud deep into his hair.

"You distract Daddy, I'm going to tackle him, alright?" I whispered to Yash, and without thinking I lined up with his path and dived underwater, making for his legs. The distance underwater seemed to stretch compared to the distance seen through air, but finally I could see leg shaped disturbances slightly to the left, corrected, and grabbed them tight. He collapsed on top of me like a giant, releasing Bhask to break his fall, and Bhask and I swam for our lives back downstream. I looked back to find Alex chasing Yash in slow motion while she screamed in delight.

Bhask and I caught our breath in the deeper water between the cliffs, safely out of sight, and despite the fun and games, there was sadness in his eyes. He saw me looking at him and did a spin in the water.

"Dorsey told you about Maddy?" he said.

"Uh huh."

And the sadness only deepened.

"She came to say goodbye, didn't she," I asked softly.

He nodded, did one more spin, then swam hard downstream, and I let him go.

Starting to feel the weight of my limbs in the water, and the chill getting into my bones, I made my way back to the picnic things and relaxed beneath the trees, letting the sun dappled shade play over me. Yanni was back from his swim and sat beside me sociably.

"You don't seem to mind Souls like the others do," I murmured, too comfortable to sit up and talk properly, "Or is it just me?"

"No, you are right," he replied, "It's not just you, though I must admit I do like you particularly. Not the most of all the Souls I've met though."

"I'm heartbroken."

He smiled to see a Soul joke like this, and I realized I had learnt a lot in the long years spent living with the humans. But Yanni's smile was also touched by a hint of sadness, and I waited for him to say more.

"My wife was implanted. I thought I had lost her. But when I met her again as a Soul, I found I hadn't lost everything. She loved me still."

"You took her back? A Soul?" I asked, finding the incentive to sit up.

"She was still my wife. She had all our memories, like she had lived with me in a parallel universe. She came to find me. She was not Anna, but she was still my wife. Giulia, of course, didn't see it that way. She moved out, she refused to live in the same house as this Anna."

"She took her name?"

"She felt she was her. It's all she would answer to."

"I can imagine Giulia would have been pretty upset."

"She did not speak to me for a long time. She only came back for Blackheath, you know."

"She seems a lot more aligned with his ideals."

"Yes. What price freedom? They cannot put too high a price on it. I am not so rich. When they killed Anna…"

"They?"

He shrugged.

"The big men in town at the time."

"Not... not Blackheath?"

"No. But would he have done any different? A Soul is a Soul, to any of them. He would have been equally deaf to my cries, I think. They left me alone though. Perhaps that was my punishment. But then, what harm can one crazy old man do?"

I squeezed his hand. The day felt less warm somehow.


	10. Chapter 10

10.

We arrived home at sunset, pleasantly exhausted from our day. Blackheath went on another fruitless Ally hunt and the rest of us got dinner and cleaning up underway.

Towards the end of dinner, a dog-like noise began. It wasn't quite a bark, but you could tell it was meant to be. The noise was intermittent at first, but quickly grew more and more insistent.

"What is that?" I asked.

"That's Ally's dog, Tingo," Bhask answered. Blackheath was already making for the door, knife hidden in one hand. I didn't even see where he got it from. Dorsey ushered me silently up the stairs, and we listened on the landing in the darkness, hearts in our mouths.

"I'd be obliged if you'd call your dog off?" a voice came from out the front, and we snuck to a window til we could just make out a posse of hard looking people in the light spilling from the open front door.

"Not my dog," Blackheath replied with remarkable disinterest.

"Right. Well, someone better teach him; if he doesn't back off he'll get shot."

We heard Ally called her dog frantically and there was silence.

"Seems our little Maddy paid you a house call the other night," the voice said, and this time I found its source, an older man in the centre of the group. I listened for any sound from Bhask or Alex, but the house may as well have been empty.

" So?" Blackheath replied finally.

"Creates tensions with my people, see. Chet isn't the sharing type."

"Don't see how this is my problem."

"That's not very neighbourly."

"We're not neighbours."

"Not yet, no."

They eyed each other, neither backing down.

"Don't see what I can do about it. While she's on your land she's your responsibility," Blackheath shrugged.

"Exactly." The older man seemed to find this acceptable. Another did not.

"If I find her here again she's fucking dead! You're all fucking dead!" This must be Chet. I had the distinct impression of menace. Blackheath ignored him.

"Please excuse my nephew," the older man said eventually, "He hasn't yet learnt to hold his tongue."

"Your nephew should learn not to make enemies he doesn't need," Blackheath said quietly.

"You took the words right out of my mouth," the older man said, very slowly, very clearly. "He should, it's true. If we were all fighting against the Souls together we'd push them into the sea. We'd be able to walk the streets of our own cities again."

"I've no argument with you there," Blackheath replied.

"Good. Glad to hear it."

"So we're done?"

The other man nodded, "Thank you for your kind hospitality."

And they disappeared into the blackness.

We waited another few minutes til we could be sure they were gone, then scrambled down the stairs.

"Let her alone, she's trouble," Blackheath was warning Bhask.

"She'll be in trouble if I leave her-"

"She'll definitely be in trouble if you go near her," Alex chipped in. Bhask backed down under their combined front. Dorsey put her arm around his shoulders and squeezed sympathetically.

But in less than half an hour Tingo was back on the job, yelping out a warning, but this time the intruder ran onto the verandah and banged vigorously on the door. Blackheath opened it warily but a girl pushed right past him and Bhask met her halfway.

"Maddy what are you doing here! They'll kill you!" he said in fright, gazing into her eyes.

"I knew they were coming here. I took the last car. I'm leaving. I'm running away!" her voice was filled with giddy hope and fear, her eyes locked on his, and the rest of us didn't seem to exist.

"Maddy, if they find you…"

"They can't go to the cities. Let's go there! They won't be able to get either of us."

"Why not just come home with me then?"

"I can't be so far away from my family, if something happens…"

"If something happens, you can't go back anyway. Diaz will still be furious."

"Things change quickly here…"

"Well, when they change, come back then."

The flow of conversation slowed, as both began to realize they were pulling in different directions.

"Don't you want to be a part of changing things?" Maddy asked him, "You're really happy to just sit back and wait?"

"I'm helping people back home-"

"Who needs your help more? Us or them?"

"Maddy…"

"I want to be with you Bhask. But I don't want to leave here."

"Well you can't go back now; Diaz will kill you."

"I know," she said after a pause, seeing that the answer she wanted was not in his eyes. He picked up her hands and squeezed them a little, staring rigidly at her hip.

"Goodbye Maddy," he whispered.

She shook free her hands and wrapped her arms around him in a single burst of movement, holding him desperately for the last time. But there was nothing more to be said, or that could be said without tears, and she ran back to the car. We listened in silence as its engine noises were engulfed by the night.

***

Bhask didn't even last 24 hours.

"I have to go," he said, hugging me hard by the front door, his bag at his feet and the car waiting.

I hugged him back just as hard. He didn't need to convince me.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered.

"Don't be sorry. You're doing the right thing."

"Say goodbye to George for me? And Margie?"

"You're not exiled, you goof, you can visit," Dorsey said.

"Yeah…"

We watched them drive off from the shadows of the verandah, my heart heavy with loss but equally swamped with joy too to see my son going after the woman he loved, finding his own happiness in their togetherness.

When all that was left was his dust trail disintegrating in the evening light, I turned to Alex and pulled the pendant out of my pocket, eyeing him knowingly.

"You remembered?"

"I remembered," I replied gravely but with a touch of satisfaction, "It means we'll never be apart."

As I tied it around his neck he leant in and kissed me like he was welcoming me home from a very long trip away.

And then we went home.

Home…

I walked around, my fingers or my gaze touching everything, photos, furniture, clothes. We drove around the city, visiting Falling Smoke's old house, the Healing Centre, the opera, Melts Blue Ice, Diane, Cara, Margie and her people, the city walls still standing though the gates were never shut. We made a trip to see George, visiting Edie's grave, walking up the hill where Blackheath had finally got together with Dorsey, through the forest where I had seen the wolf, down to the river where Bhask had fallen in after the first snows, so many years ago. And everywhere we went I felt little things slip into place, the flow of memory dislodge obstructions and flow freely until I finally felt I was me again.

And now, Kim Turner had woken up and found she had missed the past six years of her life, and I knew just how she had felt.


	11. Chapter 11

11.

"Alright, she's going to be looking for something familiar," I told Jackson, Beebe and Montgomery back at Seeker Headquarters.

"Ok…"

"We need her old address, old friends… did the Soul do a memory log? Find it, read it. Send me a copy."

"Her old address. It's Lincolnville. Anyone check it?" Jackson said, finding it in the screen system.

"Sure, local Seekers had a look," Montgomery said.

"Human or Soul?" I asked.

"Aaaah…" No one knew.

"Let's go." We took two cars in case we found her and drove the 80km to Lincolnville.

***

"You're not coming in?" Jackson asked, hesitating, as Montgomery led the way to the front door. I had stayed in the car.

"I'm a Soul, she won't react well to me," I explained. Jackson looked from me to Beebe, eyebrows raised, but I wouldn't take the bait.

"Suit yourself," he said finally, hurrying to catch up with Montgomery. "Take the park out the back then."

I sat on a wooden bench, my back to Kim's house, and surveyed the park.

There was something I was forgetting… I ran my mind over the facts of the case. Nothing sprang to mind. I glanced at my watch. How long does it take to search one house? It was already – shit. Two o'clock. I was supposed to pick Yash up from school and I'd never make it back in time. I dialed Margie double quick time.

"Margie? Hi. Can you pick Yash up today? I've got caught up at work, and I'm never going to make it back in time."

"You know that already?" She was thinking of my usual rounds of meeting and research.

"Actually, I'm in Lincolnville, if you can believe it. Seeker case. Four kids lost their Mum."

"Usually it's the other way round isn't it? Lincolnville, that's a blast from the blast. I spent junior high there, you know? Me and Raj. Raj grew up there."

"No kidding? Raj? In Lincolnville?"

"Lincolnville PS. That sure brings back a few memories."

"Hey, he didn't know a Kim Turner, by any chance? Or you?" I said, looking back at the house. That's when I saw the two human eyes looking at me from the bushes along the back fence. And I recognized those eyes…

"Kim Turner…" Margie murmured, thinking.

"Oh Jeez Margie I gotta go. Thanks you're a life saver." I hung up and slid the phone into my jacket.

"Hi," I said softly. The woman crept slowly out of the bushes, gazing at me like I was a lifeline.

"Did she know me?" she whispered.

"Oh. Sorry, I hung up before she said," I said, kicking myself mentally.

"Raj Verghese. He was a few years ahead of me." She stood uncertainly by the space next to me on the bench.

"Well Margie would be a few years ahead of that."

"She's a friend of yours?"

I nodded.

"Where are they?"

"Back home."

"In the Soul city?"

"It's a Mixed city now. Anyone can live there."

"You live there."

"Yeah, in the same street as Margie. There's lots of humans in that street. Actually there's a lot of humans in my house. My husband, for one. My daughter…" I was about to say my son, out of habit, and stopped just in time. Bhask lived with Maddy now. Then I noticed a similarly pained expression on Kim's face, and realized she was separated from her children too. She sat down carefully beside me, staring at the grass.

"I met your daughter Sarah today," I said, hoping to bring her a little closer to them with some news.

"Sarah? …How is she?"

I realized Sarah was probably the worst child to have picked. But I hadn't met the others.

"I don't know… I'm not a Comforter."

"But you're a mother."

"True," I admitted, think over the morning visit anew, "She seemed like one tough kid. Not particularly happy with where she's been put, but I think… I think she misses you."

"She said that?"

"No. She's much too cool for that."

"They grow up so fast huh." Six years in the blink of an eye. Then someone else's memories to fill it in.

"Frightening," I murmured. My phone rang, making us both jump. I answered it, smiling apologetically, and Kim's returning smile was shaky but definitely there.

"You two gonna chat all day?" It was Jackson, and I stopped myself turning around to see where he was watching from. "I thought you said she wouldn't react well to you?"

"Turns out we've got a few things in common," I replied, then covered the mouthpiece and turned to glance at Kim. "It's the Seekers that are looking for you. They are going to want to know if you want to go home."

Her forehead contracted in indecision.

"So what's the plan, here, Flame? We going home any time tonight?" Jackson pressed.

I watched her face, and knew she was thinking about her children.

"I'd say that's a possibility." I raised my eyebrows in query at her, "What do you want to do, Kim? You want to give home another try?"

Slowly, she began to nod.

"That's a definite possibility. Meet you out the front?" I said to Jackson, and he hung up in affirmation.

***

I sat in the back seat with her while Jackson chuaffered us home along the freeway, the sun reaching towards the horizon behind us.

"The house… I don't remember living there… well I do, at least, I remember _her_ living there… but…"

I knew she meant the Soul that had lived taken over her body and her life. "It still doesn't feel like your house?"

"No, it doesn't."

I understood how that could be freaky. She needed a place to start anew. I rang Margie.

"We got any houses coming up free in our street soon?"

"Oooh… there's the little place next to yours…"

"That's not free, that's for George." Bhask leaving was the last straw for George, and he'd decided to move into the city come winter. 'See my last grandchild before she disappears too', was how he'd put it, gruffly. "Besides, too small. This is for one adult and four kids. Maybe." I remembered the younger kids might want to keep staying with their Dad.

"The Lee's are moving in a few weeks… Oh, you found her then?"

"Sitting next to her now."

"Hang on a second, I'll get Raj. He's floored!"

"Raj wants to talk to you," I told her, and she took the phone almost eagerly.

"Raj? Raj Venghese! I don't believe it…"

***

The three younger kids were waiting outside the front door as we pulled up, jittering nervously in front of the man that must be the youngest's father. Kim took a deep breath and walked over to them, quickly becoming covered in small armed hugs. Stiff at first, her shoulders finally started to relax, and she turned to reply to the youngest one, smiling.

I watched them reconnecting, resting my chin on my hands above the car door, smiling.

"Don't tell me you didn't have fun today," Jackson said.

"I'm not sure I'd call it fun."

"Well you sure look like the cat that got the cream."

"Alright, it was… satisfying."

"We could do with another Seeker like you."

I gave him a look.

"No I'm serious. You ever think about getting back into it?"

"You're making me an offer."

"I need a new Soul partner. They won't let me have a human."

"You've already got a partner."

"Echoes is off for a good while by the looks. And I haven't been impressed by any of his replacements so far. What about it? Just til he gets back."

Ayasha was in school, Dorsey and Bhask were overseas… I did have the time now… what would I prefer to be doing? The answer didn't come.

"Alex doesn't even like you," I delayed.

"Since when has that been a pre requisite for the job?"

"I don't even know if I like you."

"Well. That's not entirely necessary either. But we could work on it."

I straightened my arms, swinging on the car door, turning it over in my mind.

"Look, I'm not going to beg," he said, getting an aggravated note in his voice.

"Let me think about it."

"There's that split-second decision making we like to see," he muttered, turning away.

"Alright."

"Alright?"

"Alright, I'll do it."

"Well, welcome to the beat, Seeker Hungry Flame."

"I never left, Jackson, I never really left."


End file.
